🚀 go-pugleaf

In <3CEA9625.958F7558@dot-god.com>
   Joe Baptista <hostmaster@dot-god.com> 


| > You admit they should be able to raise the price to cover
| > these costs, it seems.  But then you insist that they must
| > raise the price for everyone, including those who are *not*
| > imposing very large costs on them.
| 
| Thats the way a network works.  Bandwidth is shared.

What do you mean, "that's the way a network works?"  Is 
there some built in essence to a "network" that necessitates 
that it "works" in the way you describe, i.e., that everyone 
pays the same flat rate for unlimited access to it no matter 
how much of a load they put on it?  I don't think so.  Since 
you portray yourself as some kind of expert, can you please 
point me to some references that will enable me to learn 
about "the way a network works"?

Perhaps you could also comment on the research coming out of UC
Berkeley, reported at
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/99legacy/5-20-1999.html
with the headline:

    Internet congestion caused by flat-rate pricing and waste, 
    UC Berkeley researchers find

The only relatively in-depth stuff I have easily been able
to find on internet pricing is Hal Varian's stuff, which is
relatively old.  Perhaps things have changed since then.  So,
does anyone have any good references?   Here is a collection
compiled by Varian on various economic issues regarding the
internet, including pricing:

http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/resources/infoecon/

I have not studied them yet, and perhaps they are biased in 
one direction.  So, where are *your* references that argue 
that an "unlimited" model for pricing makes more sense, 
contrary to what most of these seem to be arguing?  There must 
be some careful, well-thought out, writing on the opposite 
side of this issue, no?

| And the fact that your
| evolutionary demands on the internet are minimal does not imply that
everyone
| else should be limited to your restricted bandwidth usage.

My demands are a lot closer to the norm, as opposed to 
being "minimal". And everyone else is *not* being limited.  
The few who want to use a lot more are still going to be 
allowed to use a lot more.  It's just that they are going 
to have to pay for their extra usage, as they already do with
many other adsl isps in Toronto such as eol and i-stop.

| I find people who don't use bandwidth are missing the point in the
internet
| revolution.  It's all about bandwidth.  and meeting the demands of
bandwidth.
| the sharing of resources and ideas is fueled by bandwidth.

And I find that you have a specific idea of how the internet 
should be used which you are attempting to impose on "everybody 
else".  I'm sorry, but there is no one "point" to the internet.  
If you want to use the internet mainly to deal with *ideas*, you 
do not need all that much bandwidth most of the time, since reading 
and thinking about the ideas is largely a rate determining step.  
It is sound and video and other sorts of multi-media that are 
largely the consumers of large amounts of bandwidth.

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Calvin Ostrum                                             
cbo@interlog.com
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 To say altruism and morality are possible in virtue of something 
 basic to human nature is not to say that men are basically good.  
 Men are basically complicated; how good they are depends on whether 
 certain conceptions and ways of thinking have achieved dominance, a 
 dominance which is precarious in any case.  The manner in which 
 human beings have conducted themselves so far does not encourage 
 optimism about the moral future of the species.   
    -- Thomas Nagel, "The possibility of altruism"
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